


Sometimes

by n7s



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Literature, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 03:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6356884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n7s/pseuds/n7s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short tumblr prompt; "If you had to write a small piece explaining Bruce Wayne without directly explaining him, how would it go?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes

Sometimes you hear the gunshots in your sleep but you don't tell anyone because instead of waking you up, the metallic sound lulls you deeper into sleep. Empty shells falling on the pavement and then the pearls—one, two, too many—and you can't listen to his shoes hitting the ground, running as far as he possibly can from the monster he created. You know he hears your screams when your knees touch the puddle of blood, but the sound never reaches _your_ ears. An invisible bubble protects you from the outside world, encircles both you and them (especially them), but it took you thirty-five years to realize the bubble wasn't temporary. You made it out of concrete and nobody can even see there's a kid behind the walls. Nobody can see the now rotten corpses.

Sometimes you see hope—actual, tangible hope—and you keep your mouth shut because hope is _felt_ , not analyzed like yet another target. _Hope isn't the enemy_ , you're told when you've spent too much time in the dark, computer screen turning your skin blue (that part under your eye _is_ blue, it was bleeding two hours ago), and you know what that means, you understand its components and the meaning behind the sentence, but it's not true for you. Or it is but you lose it. Or it is but you only know how to give it. You don't know how to take.

Sometimes you're surrounded by light, either in the form of silly banter, or red and green and yellow, or big ideals and heroes meant for the sun, and you catch yourself wondering why things can't always be this way. They are, you correct yourself, just not for you. Not directly. Then you remember the wall, and you remember the outreached hope, and you remember when you were seven, reading in a book somewhere that without darkness light can't shine and you choose to be that. You chose to be that long ago. And you're okay for a moment and you understand why silly banter and red and green and yellow and big ideals and heroes meant for the sun have their place next to you. Despite that wall. Despite the gunshots lulling you to sleep.


End file.
